Body Language for Success

Imagine the ability to walk into a room and exude self-confidence that communicates your commitment and trustworthiness.

Your posture is the best style accessory you can have as a person. Each gesture can say a lot about who you are, how you’re feeling, and how much you care about the work you’re doing. How you stand, sit and move can affect your business relationships, influence your clients’ decisions, and dictate the impact of your ideas.

70% of customer buying experiences are based on they feel? Being aware of the signals we send through our posture and how they are being perceived, it is almost certain that your personal and professional encounters will be more successful!

The importance of using body language in these communicative efforts cannot be denied. In the book the essentials of business etiquettes Barbara Pachter writes,

Here are many ways in which your body language signals affect our confidence, credibility, and personal charisma.

Affects our thoughts about ourselves which drives our confidence and self-worth. It can change our subconscious beliefs about ourself to positive ones. An Ohio State University study found that people who had a straight and tall posture believed what they wrote down concerning their qualifications for a job on a job application. On the other hand, those who were slumped over their desks were less likely to accept their own written-down statements as valid. People assume their self-worth is a product of their thoughts. Those thoughts can be manipulated for better with an open body posture. Winning negotiations and relationships are really about the beliefs you have about yourself. If you have a positive mindset about yourself and your abilities people will find you trustworthy. A tall posture helps you avoid self-sabotage that you might face due to lack of confidence.

Posture is the secret ingredient behind resilience. An open and tall posture not only makes us look strong it makes us mentally tough. Amy Cuddy research Professor from Harvard Business School has conducted extensive research on non-verbal expressions and their effects on people’s feelings, behaviors, and hormone levels. In her Ted-talk she says, “I want to start by offering you a free no-tech life hack, and all it requires of you is this: that you change your posture for two minutes.” The posture change she is suggesting is to adopt a dominant posture where your body occupies space. Why? Her research team found assuming expansive postures with an open chest and head up high result in elevated testosterone, decreased cortisol, and dominant feelings of power. Simply adopting a more dominant posture, people feel in control can tolerate more emotional distress which people chasing success are no stranger to.

Adopting an unhunched posture that’s open activates a sense of power regardless of a person’s rank in the organization. It leads to behavioral changes that lead to thinking and acting a powerful way. So, if you are pitching your services to a Fortune 500 company your posture can help you overcome self-doubts that you might have towards your service and product offering.

Adopting an upright posture increases positive thoughts, reduces fatigue, and decreases self-focus. You can probably attest to this research finding as sitting down in a defeated and collapsed position is a sign of depression. Upright position makes it easier to evoke positive memories and thoughts leading to a happy soul. A happier outlook is a precursor to success in business and relationships.

A good posture increases the flow of oxygen to brain increasing clarity. Slumping and hunching over the computer screens compress our lunges decreasing our lung capacity by up to 30%. Becoming unhunched optimizes oxygen levels leading to clarity, focus, and calm.

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